Thoughtless Intelligence

 

Last summer, the Senate Select Committee investigating the intelligence surrounding the Iraq invasion came out with what was described as a scathing report on the CIA. They said the agency had come up with data based on obviously compromised sources, and then had mangled that data into insupportable conclusions. But there the Republican-controlled committee stopped.

The Democrats wanted the committee to go further, to make the obvious turn and report on what the White House actually did with those blatantly erroneous conclusions. They might also have asked why the CIA did it, why they provided the lethal ammunition the Bushies used to persuade Congress to go along with their invasion. The results indicate that Premier Cheney sat on the CIA’s doorstep until the agency came to his conclusions. The CIA claims they didn’t bow to Cheney, but the facts speak for themselves.

The truth is that while the White House knew they were speaking from a doctored script, Congress had more than enough information from a variety of other sources to have put the brakes on this disastrous invasion. First of all, the CIA themselves had said, before they gave the White House what it wanted, that an invasion was not a good idea. The State Department was against it. The military was against it. And this was all public information.

My mother used to accuse me of only hearing what I wanted to hear. Ever the semanticist, I argued that I heard everything but just listened to what I wanted to hear. So with the White House. Except when they didn’t hear what they wanted, they got the CIA to tell them what they wanted to hear, and then they told State and the military to get into line.

Will anything be done to fix our intelligence operations? Apparently not. Despite even conservative Republican Senators denouncing the CIA, all we hear is a lotta talk but we don’t see anyone taking any real action, on either side of the aisle.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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